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Team V activates Joint Space Operations CenterVANDENBERG AFB, Calif. -- The new Joint Space Operations Center here opened May 18 in the 14th Air Force Headquarters building. Activation of the center marks the first time joint space assets will be controlled by a single entity.

VANDENBERG AFB, Calif. -- The new Joint Space Operations Center here opened May 18 in the 14th Air Force Headquarters building. Activation of the center marks the first time joint space assets will be controlled by a single entity.

VANDENBERG AFB, Calif. – Joint warfighters across the nation and around the world will soon reap the benefits from the activation of the Joint Space Operations Center, which took place May 18 in the 14th Air Force Headquarters building.

The activation marks the first time joint space assets will be controlled by a single entity for delivery to end users. The JSpOC will be the military center responsible for coordinating and delivering joint space effects.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, joint functional component commander for Space and Global Strike, presided over the ceremony. General Lance W. Lord, Air Force Space Command commander, Maj. Gen. Michael Hamel, 14th AF commander, and a host of other senior leaders from around the Air Force, Army and Navy attended.

The JSpOC integrates various joint space capabilities and focuses them for end users to improve warfighting capabilities. The center provides shared situational awareness to commanders, as well as troops on the ground. It will direct, plan and respond to theater commander and user needs and requirements.

“This [center] really is the culmination of a number of years of evolutionary thinking about space power and its applications,” General Hamel said. “We now understand how deeply space assets are embedded within all military forces. This center provides global space coordinating authority for those assets.”

The JSpOC will fall under the joint functional component commander for Space and Global Strike, as delegated by U.S. Strategic Command. This responsibility is further delegated to the Joint Space Operations commander who, at this time, is also the 14th AF commander.

“We want to be able to deliver the right capabilities and effects when they are needed and where they are needed before the theater commander asks for them; that is how we will measure success,” General Hamel said.

At this time, the JSpOC is controlled by mostly Air Force personnel, but that will likely change. Other braches of the military will begin staffing the JSpOC to provide true joint operations and give those in the field a common site picture of all space assets.

“Space assets are inherently joint and are not just an Air Force capability,” General Lord said. “We have said that we cannot operate successfully without space in our military today. What we have witnessed here codifies that space has become an equal partner with land, sea and air forces.”

625th Strategic Operations Squadron Activated at Offutt AFBJun. 14, 2007By 55th Wing Public AffairsIn a ceremony held today in the shadow of the Minuteman I Intercontinental Ballistic Missile outside USSTRATCOM Headquarters, Major General Thomas Deppe, commander Twentieth Air Force and STRATCOM Task Force 214 activated the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron. The 625th is a tenant unit on Offutt AFB and reports directly to 20 AF, located at Frances E. Warren AFB in Wyoming.

US Responds to Putin's Call for Meeting on Forces in EuropeMay 29, 2007By Al Pessin, VOA WashingtonA Pentagon spokesman says the United States would be "disappointed" if Russia stopped meeting its obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. The comment came the day after Russia called for a meeting of the treaty's signatory nations next month. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.